Thursday, December 22, 2005

Hardly anyone feels guilty about using tax preparation software rather than paying an accountant to handle their tax returns. Yet many people would tell you that there is something wrong with outsourcing tax preparation to accountants in India.

Neither economists nor non-economists tend to think of tax preparation software as an alien outsider trying to steal our jobs. However, many non-economists' type M brains instinctively think of Indian accountants as trying to do us harm. Economists are trained to look at international trade through the same type C eyes that we view technological innovation, and we are constantly amazed by the general public's hostility toward it.